Intro:
Have you installed highly recommended and Must have WordPress Plugins by Pro Bloggers on your blog, if yes. Then let me ask you a simple question do you really need all plugins to mention on their blog. No, you don’t need it, I recommend using only limited plugins what your blog really need.
Install limited plugins because they slow down your site, front or backhand never mind plugin is a plugin. Every single plugin installed will increase server resources, better keep in restricted number.
Never trust blind eye to any post written on Must have WordPress Plugins. Before installing do your own research, and then decide must WordPress plugins for your site, lets Digg into this together.
I have gone through some of the Blog written on this topic. Sorry I can’t name them here as we are bound to follow the bloggers community rules. But in their blog they had mentioned “I use twenty / thirty / fifty Plugins”. And still blog is super fast can I ask them one simple question are you on shared hosting or on any average priced VPS. No more debate as I have gone through this topic before writing this post so I know very well what I said.
Most of the Bloggers are on Normal Hosting and some found resources to get hosted their site on Hostgator or Bluehost. And this newbie blogger visits Pro Bloggers sites to get suggestion on must-have WordPress plugins to have on their website. And, they get the plugin in wholesale. New bloggers need only basic plugins which are using less shared server resources or on low-budget VPS.
Highly Recommended Must Have WordPress Plugins
Must have WordPress Plugins for any new Site.
1) Best WordPress Plugin SEO by Yoast
Yoast always comes first in the list of must-have WordPress plugins. Even there is a lot of paid Seo tools claimed to be the best. I say nothing is better than WordPress Seo by Yoast.
Do not get confused with paid SEO plugins based on their review, most of the reviews are paid ones or A truly marketing strategy to earn affiliate commission. Still marvelous amount of blogger think paid plugins are the best….. I say wait even I’ll come up in the future with paid reviews and affiliate commission.
Some of the best feature it has:
XML Sitemap Generator: Which eliminate Google XML sitemap Generator, but still most of the blog have both in their list. for me, which is useless.
Cons of Seo Yoast: No cons, but the user must have knowledge of basic Seo to use and understand plugin functions effectively.
Official Download / Instruction Link: http://yoast.com/wordpress/seo/
2) All In One WP Security & Firewall WordPress Plugins
It’s like all Security plugins came under one roof, you name and its right inside.
User Accounts Security, User Login Security, Database Security, File System Security, htaccess and wp-config.php edit, File Backup and Restore, Blacklist Functionality, Firewall Functionality, Brute force login attack prevention, Who is Look-up, Security Scanner, Comment SPAM Security, Regular updates and additions of new security features,
The best part it’s free and have good forum support.
Official Download / Instruction Link: All In One WP Security & Firewall Plugin
I don’t like Bloggers when they ignore site security, and new bloggers are on top of this list. Let me give you a small example of why I hate who start posting contents without completing the basic security settings.
3) Antivirus WordPress Plugins
Every computer user knows what is anti-virus, this plugin does the same thing for your website. It scans for malware, spam, exploits injection as well the theme for any backdoor.
Official Download / Instruction Link: http://wordpress.org/plugins/antivirus/
4) Akismet
The best plugin to combat comment spam, but I planned to retire it in future, Why ? Reason is in plugin number 8 below.
Your site is SEO optimizes and secured from most of the threats. Now its time to increase its speed and a bit customizations.
Official Download / Instruction Link: http://wordpress.org/plugins/akismet/
5) W3 Total Cache
The best and most downloaded plugin to increase the website performance and speed.
Official claimed, Increase in overall site performance by 10X on Google Speed Test and YSlow if settings are properly configured. ( but I saw average 5X increase in speed which is better as compare to previous load speed )
Official Download / Instruction Link: http://wordpress.org/plugins/w3-total-cache/
6) Contact form 7
If you have an HTML knowledge then I will say even remove this plugin from your list, but if you are dumb like me then contact form 7 is a must-have plugin. set it on contact page or on the post, simply copy-paste the code and your contact page is ready.
Official Download / Instruction Link: http://wordpress.org/plugins/contact-form-7/
7) Floating social Share bar: AA’s Digg Digg Alternative.
One of my favourite and must-have WordPress plugins, that’s why it’s on my list and am using it, Functions same like Digg Digg but much lighter in use so a good contender over Digg Digg.
Official Download / Instruction Link: http://wordpress.org/plugins/aas-digg-digg-alternative/
8) CommentLuv Plugin
Very Soon, Akismet will get retired from my blog. And the better alternative I found is CommentLuv plugin, and suggestions are for all bloggers to remove Akismet. Install any other comment plugin if you don’t like CommentLuv.
GASP (Growmap Anti Spambot Plugin) function is much more powerful as compare to Akismet and only comes in CommentLuv Premium. That’s why I have still kept Akismet in My list. [ my CommentLuv is a free one and very soon going to have premium ].
Here is a small description Why? I have observed on a couple of occasions and confirmed with blog webmasters, that even after writing a Good Comment its get tag as spam by Akismet.
I started getting crazy as commenting and link building is a must for my blog. Next time I took a screenshot for the proof that it’s genuine. Then came to know that blog admin never received any of my comment, the main culprit was Akismet.
Now the decision is yours and very soon am Going to come up with a full detail article on this issue.
At present I use above mention 8 Highly recommended WordPress Plugins, which is more than enough for any sites.
Official Download / Instruction Link: http://wordpress.org/plugins/commentluv/
Must Have WordPress Plugins in coming days.
YARP Plugin: Still I have not finalized about this plugin. It’s good and used by most of the blogs but we already link all the related post in our content, so the question arises. Is it useful or only have the good looking factor.
Interlinking Plugin: Manual interlinking is better but after site get bigger, it might be required.
Hello Bar: At present I don’t have much to offer, but yes in coming days.
WP Login Security 2: Nice Plugin, only recognized IP is permitted to log in, or else need to go through user email verification. Even if someone knows your admin access they can’t log in as email verification is required. But the plugin is not updated for some time. my question is can we still use this plugin?
Official Download / Instruction Link: http://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-login-security-2/
Plugin will never get place on my, Must have WordPress plugins list.
Google Analytics: I use analytics directly from Google analytics site, and Bing Webmaster tool.
Google XML site Map: If we have yoast Xml generator why we need extra plugin for same job.
Facebook Like Box: Why you need a plugin for this, Simply use Facebook developer tool and get your code.
Any Backup Plugin: All In One WP Security & Firewall Plugin, does pretty good job.
OK that’s it. can’t remember any more as I have never played with plugins.
All reviews and recommendation are truly based on my opinion ©, no third-party is involved in finalizing the review. We are not expecting any debates but suggestions on improvement will be appreciated.
This is my list of Must Have WordPress Plugins, let me know yours or if I missed something. So that even I can get it done on my site. And if you have gone through the whole post then you know I have asked for some suggestions above, let me know on that as well. OK guys time for a Pack up and yes let me remind you my comment section is open and is on Commenluv so don’t say that your comment has been detected as a spam…hahaha cheers.
